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Vance tours U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, faulting Harris over immigration record
Cochise County, Arizona — Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, toured the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona on Thursday, where he criticized the Biden administration’s immigration policies and targeted Vice President Kamala Harris over her record on the issue.
“It’s hard to believe, until you see it with your own eyes, just how bad the policies of the Kamala Harris administration have been when it comes to the southern border,” Vance said, not mentioning President Biden and focusing his criticism on the new presumptive Democratic nominee. The Ohio Republican received a tour of the border wall by law enforcement officials in Cochise County in Arizona, which has become a hotspot for border crossings.
Vance promised that a Trump-Vance White House would reimplement Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, stop so-called “catch and release” policies and finish the border wall. He also vowed to carry out mass deportations of illegal migrants, a promise that Trump has made since he launched his 2024 campaign.
The visit comes as the number of unlawful migrant crossings along the U.S. southern border has continued to fall, dropping for the fifth consecutive month in July and reaching the lowest level since the fall of 2020. But Vance told CBS News in an interview after his border tour that he did not think the Biden-Harris administration was doing anything right on immigration.
“No, I don’t think they are. And when the Harris administration says the border crossings have dropped, she’s not counting a lot of the people” who are arriving through legal ports of entry, Vance said. “And so actually, if you combine everything together, the number of people who are coming across our border illegally is still really at all-time highs.”
Republicans often accuse the administration of playing a “shell game” by admitting migrants at ports of entry, diverting them from crossing illegally. But entering at a port of entry is not illegal, contrary to what Vance suggested, and the number of crossings has still decreased significantly when illegal crossings and admissions at ports of entry are grouped together.
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When pressed what specifically he would do to curb the root causes of immigration from South American countries, something that Harris was tasked to do early on in the Biden administration, Vance falsely claimed that she was the “border czar,” a misrepresentation of her role in addressing migration chiefly through diplomacy and private sector investment.
“Well, she was tasked as border czar with addressing the root causes of immigration,” Vance said. “I think the root causes of illegal immigration are that Kamala Harris refuses to do her job.”
“This is not rocket science,” Vance added, emphasizing he’d work to “build up the economies of Central America and South America to make migration less common so that people can build a life in their home countries.”
In the first four months of 2024, Border Patrol recorded more than 250,000 migrant apprehensions in the Tucson sector, which includes Cochise County. That was the most of any region patrolled by the agency, according to government statistics.
Vance also referenced his own family history with addiction as he blamed the Biden-Harris administration for the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
“I have been a little kid waiting at the bedside of his mother, angry that his mom took something that she shouldn’t have taken, but praying to God, please, Jesus let her wake up. And the unfortunate truth is because of the poison that Kamala Harris has let come into this country,” Vance said.
The Ohio senator also defended his push to finish the border wall from critics who say the barriers are disruptive and impractical.
“I’m sure that not everything’s perfect, but law enforcement sometimes does cause disruptions, [and] it’s the sort of thing that’s totally necessary in order for us to have a secure border,” Vance told CBS News. “I think the disruptions of having a flood of people come in is much worse than the disruption of having a wall. And so it’s one of those things where the cost-benefit analysis, I think, definitely counsels in favor of us finishing this border wall.”
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TRENTON, N.J. — Democratic Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver has defeated Republican small businessman Carmen Bucco in a contest in New Jersey’s 10th Congressional District that opened up because of the death of Rep. Donald Payne Jr. in April.
McIver will serve out the remainder of Payne’s term, which ends in January. She and Bucco will face a rematch on the November ballot for the full term.
McIver said in a statement Wednesday that she stands on the “shoulders of giants,” naming Payne as chief among them.
She cast ahead to the November election, saying the right to make reproductive health choices was on the ballot as well as whether the economy should benefit the wealthy or “hard working Americans.”
“I will fight because the purpose of politics and the purpose of our vote is to give the people of our communities and our nation a bold voice,” she said.
Bucco congratulated McIver on the victory in a statement but said he’s looking forward to the rematch in November.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said in an email. “We still have a second chance to make district 10 great again!”
Who are LaMonica McIver and Carmen Bucco?
McIver emerged as the Democratic candidate in a crowded field in the July special election. A member of the city council of New Jersey’s biggest city since 2018, she also worked for Montclair Public Schools as a personnel director and plans to focus on affordability, infrastructure, abortion rights and “protecting our democracy,” she told The Associated Press earlier this summer.
Bucco describes himself on his campaign website as a small-business owner influenced by his upbringing in the foster system. He lists support for law enforcement and ending corruption as top issues.
The 10th District lies in a heavily Democratic and majority-Black region of northern New Jersey. Republicans are outnumbered by more than 6 to 1.
It’s been a volatile year for Democrats in New Jersey, where the party dominates state government and the congressional delegation.
Among the developments were the conviction on federal bribery charges of U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who has denied the charges, and the demise of the so-called county party line — a system in which local political leaders give their preferred candidates favorable position on the primary ballot.
Democratic Rep. Andy Kim, who’s running for Menendez’s seat, and other Democrats brought a federal lawsuit challenging the practice as part of his campaign to oust Menendez, who has resigned since his conviction.
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Sean “Diddy” Combs at same Brooklyn detention center that held R. Kelly, Sam Bankman-Fried, other high-profile inmates
A second judge refused to grant bail to Sean “Diddy” Combs on Wednesday and he could remain in federal custody at a Brooklyn detention center until his trial for sex trafficking charges. Combs joins other high-profile inmates, such as singer R. Kelly, fallen cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, rapper Ja Rule —even Al Sharpton served a brief stint— who were held at the same federal detention center.
Notorious for its horrible conditions —inmates won a $10 million class action settlement after enduring frigid conditions during an 8-day blackout in 2019— the waterfront industrial complex, MDC Brooklyn, houses 1,200 inmates.
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Violence and corruption have long plagued the facility; U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown of the Eastern District of New York wrote the detention center had “dangerous, barbaric conditions” in a recent sentencing opinion. Two inmates were stabbed to death in recent months and several correction officers have been convicted for smuggling contraband and accepting bribes.
Combs joins a list of high-profile personalities that have landed at the MDC Brooklyn, partly because the city’s other federal detention center, MDC New York, closed in 2021, also due to horrible conditions. The disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein died by suicide in his cell there in 2019. “Numerous and serious” instances of misconduct among corrections staff gave Epstein the opportunity to kill himself, a subsequent federal watchdog investigation found.
Kelly sued the federal detention center in 2022 for wrongly putting him on suicide watch after his sentencing. Kelly sought $100 million because he said the detention center knew he wasn’t suicidal after he was convicted in 2021 for racketeering and violating the Mann Act, which bars transporting people across state lines for prostitution.
Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Former crypto billionaire Bankman-Fried survived on bread, water and sometimes peanut butter when he was in the MDC Brooklyn, his attorney said, because the detention center continued to serve him a “flesh diet” despite requests for vegan dishes.
Ja Rule stayed at the MDC Brooklyn for a brief time before being released after serving most of his two-year sentence for illegal gun possession. Most of his prison time was spent in a state prison in New York.
Sharpton served a 90-day sentence in 2001 and went on a hunger strike for protesting the U.S. Navy bombing of the island of Vieques, in Puerto Rico.
Combs was taken into custody on Monday and according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday he was charged with sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy and transportation to engage in prostitution.
His attorney Marc Agnifilo told CBS News, “It’s impossible to prepare for a trial from where he is,” after a first federal judge denied Combs bail on Tuesday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn Tarnofsky agreed with prosecutors who argued the hip-hop mogul, who is accused of using his business empire as a criminal enterprise to conceal his alleged abuse of women, is a flight risk and poses an ongoing threat to the safety of the community.
Agnifilo said the part of the detention center where Combs is being held is “a very difficult place to be.”
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